crowd-control
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Crowd Control announced on your screen in patch 5.1
In one of my earlier PvP addon posts here at WoW Insider, I talked about a fantastic addon, which was, and still is, called LoseControl. What LoseControl did was to bring up an icon in the middle of your screen whenever you lost control of your character, that indicated precisely how you had lost control, by displaying a spell icon, and for how long. This could also be modified by OmniCC to add a duration if you preferred that to the pie-chart method of measuring time, as can be seen in the header image. I always think that the mark of a really good addon is when Blizzard incorporates it into the game, and it looks like this is exactly what's happening with LoseControl. The Blizzard blog with the official 5.1 PTR patch notes had this to say: Blizzard A new banner will appear when a player is subjected to an effect that causes them to lose control of their character. The effect that caused the loss of control and remaining duration will be displayed. Configuration options are available in the "Combat" section of the "Interface Options" menu. source Additionally, new strings have been datamined that indicate that these banners will show the type of CC a player is subject to, as well as the effect itself, so, for example, Psychic Scream is a fear effect, and can be removed with Will of the Forsaken or a Tremor Totem, whereas Mortal Coil is a horror and cannot.
Hyperspace Beacon: SWTOR's Gabe Amatangelo on 1.4 and free-to-play
It's not usual for the Hyperspace Beacon to feature two interviews in a row, but Star Wars: The Old Republic has some major changes coming. Update 1.4 promises to give us new and exciting content like a new operation and a new warzone, and after the EA earnings call, we learned that SWTOR will tackle the free-to-play market. Readers and fans voiced both concerns and excitement over this move. I couldn't just let that stand; I had to pose some questions to the BioWare developers. SWTOR's Principal Lead PvP Designer Gabe Amatangelo picked up the call. Our conversation focused on these two major changes to the game and the concerns fans have for the game's immediate future. Read on!
Diablo III tries a new approach to crowd control
If you've been playing Diablo III and thought that its crowd control mechanics felt, well, weak, then Blizzard agrees with you. In a new post on the official site, Senior Technical Game Designer Wyatt Cheng explains the original reasoning behind Diablo III's crowd control, brainstorming sessions that the devs had to fix it, and the team's final decision. Coming soon to the game will be a buff for CC that creates new rules for how mobs process these abilities when used against them. Cheng explains it thusly: "Monsters have a 'CC resistance' that is stored on a per-monster basis. The CC resistance starts at 0%. For every one second CC that is applied to the monster, the monster receives 10% CC resistance. Monsters lose 10% of their CC resistance every second that they are not CC'd. Elite monster CC resistance is capped at the current reduction values already active for Elites." He says that after the change, "near-infinite CC strategies will work," making the player feel powerful while not unbalancing the game.
The Daily Grind: Should PvE crowd-control work in PvP?
One of my very biggest pet peeves about playing a Protection Warrior in World of Warcraft is the fact that taunt does not work in PvP. Some players argue that having platemail and a huge bar of health makes up for my losing a core class ability, but I say platemail and a huge bar of health is pretty useless when I can't force players to attack me. World of Warcraft is hardly the only game that nerfs core skills for PvP. Ultima Online, for example, offers music skills like Peacemaking and Provocation that can't be used on other players, rendering Bards ineffective Felucca-side. But it needn't be that way. Warhammer Online was a breath of fresh air; at launch, I ran around on my Ironbreaker, gleefully taunting other players and forcing their attention to me. Hit me, fools! Muahaha! Sure, I'd rather see more organic and tactical combat such that taunt as a mechanic isn't even necessary, and some players might say Guild Wars 2 does just that. But what about those games that can't just cut taunt from the skill roster? Do you think PvE crowd-controls like taunt should work in PvP? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Skill Mastery: Blinding Light
Ever since Eadric the Pure first made players spin around to avoid being blinded by his Radiance -- the bane of keyboard turners everywhere -- many paladins were enamored with the idea of firing off a flash of light and similarly dazzling those around them into incoherence. And we almost had it too, in the Cataclysm beta, when Blinding Light first debuted as a player ability. However, the spell was removed early on, only (it seems) to be put on the back burner. Now, Blinding Light returns in Mists for a second try at making it into the paladin spellbook. This time around, it looks like it is here to stay. If you're in the beta, you can try it out yourself as soon as you hit 87. The spell itself is pretty straightforward. On a 3-minute cooldown, you can fire off a burst of light that will cause all enemies around you to wander confusedly for 6 seconds. As a tank, I can see myself getting a lot of use out of this in AoE situations, when I need a breather from a pack of enemies that are punching me in the face. Ret and holy paladins will find similar use for it, whether out in the wilds of Pandaria or deep in PvP. Basically, any time you need to get a large number of enemies to leave you alone for a few seconds, this spell is there for you. Admittedly, it doesn't have the same flash or zing as some other level 87 spells, but it can very much shine in the right situations. It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
5 ways to keep your tank happy in 5-man heroics
I recently wrote a similar post about how to keep your healers happy -- now I don't want it to sound like I'm hating on you tanks. See how this is a nice, predictable series? Can you guess what's coming next? I just need to think of another three ways to keep your DPSers happy in 5-man heroics -- but don't worry, I'll run some more heroics and I'll get there. My first and still allegedly main character is a paladin tank, and I've run a few dungeons in my time. There are some simple things everyone can do to make sure their tank is a happy meaty meat shield rather than a disgruntled defender. 5. Watch your aggro. Remember this from the "How to keep your healer happy" post? Yeah, much as that helps your healer, it also helps your tank. Playing as a paladin, I have one of the easiest AoE tanking rotations out there -- but still, if a DPSer front-loads all their damage into something that isn't my primary target before I've had one GCD to hit the darn thing, even with the new aggro buff, it may well be after you. As a paladin, I can pre-bubble you with Hand of Salvation to decrease the likelihood of this happening or even a Hand of Protection on a caster (or on a melee player to troll them). I also have an arsenal of taunts. However, other tanking classes don't have it so easy -- just give the tank a moment to gain aggro, then attack the thing that they're attacking.
Crowd control basics by class
So, crowd control. Contrary to the name, it isn't really a good way of controlling crowds; rather, it's a great way to control the size of the crowd of mobs mercilessly attacking your tank. Crowd control in this post means abilities that can be applied prior to a pull. We'll get to abilites like Psychic Scream, warriors' Intimidating Shout and Shadowfury a bit later, but they're not our primary concern right now. There are some situations, particularly in the Rise of the Zandalari dungeons where pre-pull CC isn't possible (such as the adds on the way to Nalorakk in Zul'Aman) where you'll need to CC on the fly, but this is rarely the case. Not all classes have crowd control abilities of the type we're talking about here. Warriors and death knights have a few stuns, fears and Hungering Cold, all of which can be put to excellent use but aren't really crowd control in this sense as they can't be cast prior to the pull. So which classes have these pre-pull crowd control abilities, and what are they?
Scattered Shots: Scatter-trapping with grace and ease
Frostheim appears to be decimated, unable to write this week, over the loss of the most recent raiding gun from the patch 4.3 PTR files. As someone who PVPs to get my first raiding weapon of most patches, I can choose whichever ranged death-dealing machine I want. Of course, as a Worgen (not to mention someone who is generally the butt of many of Frostheim's jokes on our podcast), I usually choose a crossbow after buying, returning and screenshotting the gun. Today, Scattered Shots will be all about a very basic hunter PVP survival skill: scatter-trapping. All hunters of all specs can scatter-trap, and whether you're being ganked doing dailies, trying to win Baradin Hold, or doing competitive Arena, it's one of those skills that can really set you apart. Traps on their own are only useful for people you can force to cross through them. Mostly, this means melee, although you can sometimes force a ranged player to cross a trap if you're humping a pillar properly. What do we do when we want to freeze someone who isn't chasing us, though? Freezing Trap is really our most effective crowd control ability. We'll often want it to be used on someone that matters like a healer. Unfortunately, short of stepping up to a healer and dropping a trap on them, there's no way to force them to cross our path.
Blood Sport: Finding your PVP playstyle in arena
Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women? C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 Gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in Blood Sport. I've found one of the most common excuses for not having an arena team is conflicting playstyles with past teammates. While often times these excuses are not really the problem (far too many arena players are self-centered and unreceptive to criticism), playstyle differences can be a factor in not meshing well with certain players. I'd like to provide you with a few common playstyle differences, my take on which side of the spectrum is generally more popular, which side is generally better, and what I tend toward.
Hyperspace Beacon: Find your focus
Thanks to the new advanced class page on the Star Wars: The Old Republic website and MMORPG.com's interview with Georg Zoeller, we now know quite a bit about the skill tree breakdown of each advanced class. However, over the next few weeks, I want to take a look at a few of the classes and read between the lines of text. Several abilities are listed for each class, but how do they fit together? What does the complete package look like? The Jedi Knight looks to be one of the most popular classes to play. After all, what kid growing up didn't have a fantasy of wielding a lightsaber just like Luke Skywalker or Obi-Wan Kenobi? I'd like to give a general overview of the advanced class abilities and collate a comprehensive list of the announced abilities. Follow me beyond the cut to see how these puzzle-pieces fit together in SWTOR.
Spiritual Guidance: Shadow priests react to patch 4.1, look forward to 4.2
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Every Wednesday, shadow priesting expert Fox Van Allen takes you down the only road he's ever been down. You know, the one that takes you to the places where all the veins meet, yeah. Shortly after patch 4.1 went live last Tuesday, I got the chance to raid Bastion of Twilight. I tried out Mind Sear on the first pull, and the numbers were absolutely luscious. Instead of weak, ugly, sub-2,000 ticks, I was seeing ticks twice that size. Before long, I was gaming my trash rotations, trying to proc Empowered Shadow and keep it up through the pulls. It was terrific practice for Cho'gall -- I finally felt like my AoE was making an impact on that encounter. Overall, I got praise for the improved numbers I was putting out (thanks, Mind Sear!). But that praise got me thinking -- how is the rest of the shadow priest community faring in the post-4.1 world? And with patch 4.2 around the corner ... is there anything about shadow priests that Blizzard still needs to fix?
Funcom's Age of Conan version 2.2 patch detailed, delayed
Yesterday we told you about two new group dungeons in Age of Conan's Paikang imperial city, and later tonight you should be able to experience them for yourself. Yes, it's patch day in Hyboria, and version 2.2 is in the process of being pushed live to the game's American shards. European servers received the update earlier this morning, and there are a few issues, judging by a feedback thread on the EU boards. What's in the patch other than the previously mentioned Ai and Tian'an District dungeons? Quite a lot of stuff actually, starting with tweaks to the endgame faction grind. Funcom has made a significant number of adjustments to faction quests, faction quest rewards, and Marks of Acclaim distribution. Combat, in particular crowd-control abilities and counters, has also been tweaked in the 2.2 update, and the official patch notes have a complete breakdown on the changes by class. As of press time, Funcom's Age of Conan launcher indicates that the patch has been delayed by five hours, with an estimated up time of 6:00 p.m. EDT.
Monthly update lays out Age of Conan development roadmap
The year ahead is shaping up to be a busy one for Age of Conan, and Funcom's Craig Morrison lays down a rough foundation for the next few months in his latest monthly development update. If you're looking for the short version, it's this: Now that the Dreamworld deployment is in the books, AoC is continuing to pick up new dev talent and will be adding more content going forward. In the immediate future, players are getting crowd-control balances, two level-80 group dungeons, and a faction progression revamp, all of which are slated for the next update and currently available on the test server. Following that, we can look forward to The Forgotten City and The Breach, two new solo auto-content generation dungeons designed for levels 40 to 80. There are also a handful of technical improvements, optimizations, and general balancing scheduled to accompany the new content, and of course the much-anticipated Blood and Glory PvP server ruleset is coming sometime this summer. Finally, Morrison teases fans with a blurb about AoC's late-2011 updates, specifically "two new and important elements incoming." He also hints at some sort of tie-in with the upcoming Conan film reboot. Head to the official AoC boards to see for yourself.
DOFUS introduces Rogue and Masqueraider classes
Class-based fantasy games aren't unusual these days; in fact, they're the standard. It's rare that such a title has more than a handful of classes, though. Then there's DOFUS. The six-year-old free-to-play title recently added Masqueraiders and Rogues, bringing the game's class total to a whopping 14. Rogues function a bit differently than the rascally backstabbers you may be used to from other games. Rogues effectively dictate actions on the battlefield through the use of bombs and walls, which direct enemy movements and function as a form of crowd control. Masqueraiders take their power from a variety of wearable masks, which allow the player to adopt several fighting styles. Three masks types are available: the cowardly mask (ranged damage), the psychopath mask (close combat damage), and the classic mask (crowd control). Finally, Masqueraiders can also avail themselves of several buff-type spells including plastron, tororuga, and trance. Head to the official DOFUS website for all the details.
The Queue: A fel dilemma
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. I walked into today's edition of The Queue fully intending to be a counterpoint to Adam's Queue yesterday -- I would walk in, say mages are awesome, and mages everywhere would herald me as their redemption. I would be carried off into the sunset as a hero. The problem is ... I can't do it. I just can't lie like that. Mages are awful! Warlocks are also awful, though. I would say that shadow priests are obviously the best casters, but then I would be stroking Fox's ego, and you people do that enough already. Warriors need a caster spec, obviously. Faltor asked: As a new tank learning in the Cataclysm era, what is the most common standard for marking? I know almost everybody uses skull for first kill and sheep for moon, but everything else seems fair game. I know the right answer is just "explain what you use to the DPS" but I want to use something close to standard if there is one (like, does X really usually mean kill second).
Lichborne: Blizzard tackles death knight DPS utility in patch 4.1
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done. Judging by some of the most recent changes on the patch 4.1 PTR, I'd guess that someone at Blizzard has been listening to player complaints about the difficulties in bringing classes that do not have crowd control or other major non-damage related utility to dungeons. Unfortunately, I wouldn't say they've responded in the way some of us were wishing they would, by giving death knights and warriors a simple humanoid crowd control spell. They have instead, added some tweaks that address the issue in some unexpected ways that may or may not solve the problem and in some cases feel a little bit unwieldy or unconventional.
Alter-Ego: An overview of the trinity in DC Universe Online
In DC Universe Online, all of the different powersets can pump out DPS -- however, the trinity is alive and well even in this superhero game. Thankfully, due to the way the powers are designed, our ability to stack effects, and the heavy utilization of combos, grouping or raiding in DC Universe Online doesn't generally feel like you're stuck simply mashing buttons. If you get in with a regular group, you'll learn the ways you can play your powers off each other using synergy, thereby adding an entirely new level of awareness to encounters. Unfortunately, endgame isn't just about going into an instance and unleashing everyone's max damage to tear through the place. While all characters can do damage in DC Universe Online, roles are still vitally important for group PvE and endgame content. As a preamble to a series that will look at builds for each role in the game and what they can bring to the table, I thought it would be a good idea to take this first week to look at which powersets go with the roles players use in endgame. Join me behind the break as I break it all down for those who are new to the game or perhaps are looking for a refresher.
Addon Spotlight: LoseControl
Each week, WoW Insider brings you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs as well as Addon Spotlight, which focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same. This week, take back control of your life with LoseControl. Give me an A! Give me a -ddon! Give me a Spotlight! What's that spell? A half-assed attempt at an engaging introduction for this week's Addon Spotlight! Does that lame joke make you want to charge my office and do physical harm to me? Well, good, because this week's addon is a PvP-centric tool that can help you regain control of your character and potentially your sanity. One of the worst feelings is losing control of your character. In fact, as a design decision, many MMOs including WoW limit the amount of player abilities that cause a player to lose control of their avatar. No one likes losing total control for a long time -- it just isn't fun! Balance reasons aside, there is a reason that most stuns, CC options, and other abilities are on short timers.
Lichborne: 3 things death knights need in patch 4.1
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. Join World of Warcraft's first hero class as we head into a new expansion and shed the new kid on the block label. Now, before you get too excited about the title, we still don't know when patch 4.1 is dropping, much less when it's coming to the PTR, so don't think this is any sort of announcement. That said, it's never too early to wish and speculate. I won't deny it, I love death knights and I love balanced classes, but not everything I want for death knights is ironclad. A lot of what I want would probably turn them into horribly overpowered machines of death and destruction, powered by the tears of lesser classes. That said, as I've played my death knight day by day, there are a few things I've noticed time and time again, quality of life issues that could really use some TLC from the dev team -- things that I am relatively sure wouldn't overpower us if fixed up. This week, I'm going to discuss three death knight issues I've noticed in Cataclysm and how I think Blizzard should fix them with the next major content or class balance patch.
Arcane Brilliance: The mage survival guide, part 2
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. This week, we continue our discussion of ways to avoid dying horribly. This week's tip: Roll a death knight. Yes, the sad reality of being a mage is the ever-present threat of a swift and ignominious demise. We're like every character in The Walking Dead: We could go at any time, and our only consolation is that God willing, we'll be able to blow up a few zombies on our way out. Last week, we discussed a few methods for surviving to pew pew another day, namely aggro drop and damage mitigation. This week, we turn our attention to two other lifesaving techniques: movement and crowd control. Just remember as we go forward that every time a mage survives a fight, an angel punches a warlock in the face. Have I used that joke before? I may have. Doesn't make it any less true. Angels hate warlocks. So does Jesus. And me. And, I pray, all of you.
